Researchers Latch Onto BitTorrent To Spot Connection Problems

alphadogg writes "Northwestern University researchers have developed a system that gives a heads up about traffic problems on the Internet, where there is no central management system. Their Network Early Warning System (NEWS), which latches on to a popular BitTorrent client, is designed to spot problems by encouraging feedback from end users who are experiencing problems. 'You can think of it as crowd sourcing network monitoring,' said associate professor Fabián Bustamante. He has a track record with BitTorrent users, having developed the popular Ono plug-in for speeding up P2P interactions."

Comments

I've been wanting something like this for ages

[Narnie]

Finally a tool that will allow end users to objectively compare ISP networks!

I've switch service providers several time because of network outages and performance issues. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be on the phone with tech support, insisting that I need to reboot windows one more time (though it's funny as hell to tell them it's a linux box) and after 45 minutes holding and 4 or 5 technical support reps I finally talk to a tech that admits network issues. It will be nice to see how my current provider compares against the local competition.

But I wonder how much bittorrent "traffic shaping" (blocking) will effect ISP scores?